Top IT firms log on to social networking sites to hire middle & senior-level staff

Srividya Iyer & Devina Sengupta, ET BureauJul 5, 2010, 08.08pm IST

BANGALORE: Nearly half of new middle- and senior-level staff at top tech firms — including Accenture, Cognizant, Mindtree, HP-Mphasis and Wipro — are going to be hired from social networking sites such as LinkedIn, company officials and experts tracking the sector said.

Tech firms are now realising that middle-to senior-level managers and leaders are best hunted from platforms such as LinkedIn, where professionals are not necessarily disgruntled job seekers.

For instance, Accenture, the world's second-biggest technology consulting firm, plans to hire nearly 40% of its new staff over the next few years through social networking sites such as LinkedIn. And the consulting major is not the only tech employer riding this trend. In fact, software maker Oracle famously found its CFO Jeff Epstein through LinkedIn way back in 2008.

"A lot of us who, until a few months ago were busy tweeting and updating Facebook profiles, are realising that LinkedIn is what the recruitment managers are really serious about," said Anushka Shivaram, a brand manager working with a software product firm who got hired through LinkedIn earlier this year.

HP-EDS firm MphasiS used Facebook and LinkedIn extensively. For instance, it created a Facebook page called 'The great MphasiS treasure hunt' which was aimed at hiring people across India in application business and also drive footfalls. Around 7,000 people walked in across all centres for interviews and around 650 were hired. While most companies agree that recruitment firms are an indispensable part of the hiring process, they have started shifting to social networking sites.

"This recruitment method comes at zero cost, the candidate comes in with references, which in turn reduces the attrition numbers," said Elango R, head of HR at MphasiS. Officials at Cognizant and Accenture who spoke to ET, on condition of anonymity, said their companies could hire nearly half of its new senior-to-middle-level managers through LinkedIn.

"Unlike online recruitment with active job seekers, LinkedIn seems to be offering happily-employed people who we would like to hire," said one of the officials. "We sift through the relevant profiles, and even look through the recommendations provided by acquaintances of potential candidates," he added.

The candidates are generally differentiated as active and passive job seekers in the recruitment parlance. Recruiters, as well as companies, look for the passive job seekers on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Though it takes a long time, the quality of talent is quite good, according to recruitment managers. Meanwhile, these sites are mostly used to seek candidates for middle and senior levels.